Shares of analytical instrumentation development and manufacturing firm Agilent Technologies (A) gained 1.3% in Tuesday’s extended trade to close at $162.94 after the company reported strong financial results for the fiscal third quarter ended July 31.
Headquartered in California, Agilent supplies analytical software, instruments, consumables and services for the laboratory workflow. It caters to the energy, environmental and forensics, food, chemicals, diagnostics and pharmaceutical industries.
Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) increased 41% year-over-year to $1.10, beating the Street’s estimate of $0.99. Quarterly revenue grew 26% to $1.59 billion, exceeding analysts’ expectations of $1.54 billion. (See Agilent stock chart on TipRanks)
Life Sciences and Applied Markets Group’s (LSAG) revenue was up 22% year-over-year at $680 million. Revenue of the Agilent CrossLab Group (ACG) rose 21% to $560 million. Diagnostics and Genomics Group’s (DGG) revenue surged 44% to $346 million.
The President and CEO of Agilent, Mike McMullen, said, “The positive momentum in Agilent’s business continued in the third quarter across all markets and regions as our performance exceeded our expectations. Our focus on high-growth businesses and strong execution has again led to another quarter of excellent results and we expect this momentum to continue as we close out our fiscal year.”
Following the third-quarter results, the company has raised its guidance. For Fiscal Year 2021, Agilent projects revenue to range from $6.29 billion to $6.32 billion and adjusted EPS to be in the range of $4.28 to $4.31.
For the fourth quarter, it expects revenue in the range of $1.63 billion to $1.66 billion and adjusted EPS to lie between $1.15 and $1.18.
Last month, KeyBanc analyst Paul Knight maintained a Buy rating on the stock with a price target of $160 (0.6% downside potential). The analyst expects the company to report earnings of $0.71 per share in the fiscal fourth quarter.
Overall, the stock has a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 9 Buys and 1 Hold. The average Agilent Technologies price target of $150.78 implies 6.3% downside potential. The company’s shares have gained 64.4% over the past year.
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